Climate Change is Based on Common Sense not

Climate Change is Based on Common Sense not computer models … not recent temperatures … not complicated!

Planetary Energy Balance Energy In = Energy Out But the observed Ts is about 15° C

Dancing Molecules and Heat Rays! • • Nearly all of the air is made of oxygen (O 2) and nitrogen (N 2) in which two atoms of the same element share electrons Infrared (heat) energy radiated up from the surface can be absorbed by these molecules, but not very well O O N N Diatomic molecules can vibrate back and forth like balls on a spring, but the ends are identical

Dancing Molecules and Heat Rays! • Carbon dioxide (CO 2) and water vapor (H 2 O) are different! • They have many more ways to vibrate and rotate, so they are very good at absorbing and emitting infrared (heat) radiation O C O O H H Molecules that have many ways to wiggle are called “Greenhouse” molecules Absorption spectrum of CO 2 was measured by John Tyndall in 1863

Common Sense 4 Watts • Doubling CO 2 would add 4 watts to every square meter of the surface of the Earth, 24/7 • Doing that would make the surface warmer John Tyndall, January 1863 • This was known before light bulbs were invented!

Common Misconception #1 “Expectations of future warming are based on extrapolation of recent warming trends” WRONG! They are based on the idea that when we add energy to the surface, it will warm up

19 th Century Climate Physics (Svante Arrhenius, 1897) a. S 0 es. Ts 4 S 0 Differentiate, apply chain rule Ts Earth Arrhenius worked out a simple formula for the change in surface temperature given a change in effective atmospheric emissivity due to CO 2

19 th Century Climate Physics(cont’d) Plug in measured values W m-2 (from satellite data) W m-2 Ts = 288 K (for 2 x CO 2 from radiative transfer) For CO 2 alone (no feedback), expect about 2 °F warming for 2 x CO 2

Climate Feedback Processes • Positive Feedbacks (amplify changes) D hi cloud D LW D lo cloud De DTS D albedo Dvapor – Water vapor – Ice-albedo – High clouds • Negative feedbacks (damp changes) – Longwave cooling – Low clouds

Learning from the Past climate changes reveal climate sensitivity

Tiny Bubbles … Priceless ice age

CO 2 and the Ice Ages • Over the past 420, 000 years atmospheric CO 2 has varied between 180 and 280 ppm, beating in time with the last four glacial cycles CO 2 370 ppm in 2000 ice ice Vostok (400 k yr) Ice Core data (Petit et al, 1999) ice

Review: 19 th Century Physics (updated using paleo-data) • Forcing: changes in properties of atmosphere as measured by spectroscopy (4 W m-2 per doubling of CO 2) • Feedback: both positive and negative, total response to forcing estimated from Ice Age climate data (about 0. 8 °C per W m-2) • Response: about 3. 2 °C warming for 2 x CO 2 No climate models required … just based on observations (modern calculations agree … coincidence? )

CO 2 and the Modern Age • Over the past 420, 000 years atmospheric CO 2 has varied between 180 and 280 parts per million, beating in time with the last four glacial cycles • Since the Industrial Revolution, CO 2 has risen very rapidly CO 2 370 in 2009 388 ppm in 2000 ice ice Vostok (400 k yr) Ice Core data (Petit et al, 1999) from measurements ice

CO 2 and the Future • Over the past 420, 000 years atmospheric CO 2 has varied between 180 and 280 parts per million, beating in time with the last four glacial cycles • Since the Industrial Revolution, CO 2 has risen very rapidly • If China & India develop using 19 th Century technology, CO 2 will reach 900 ppm in this century CO 2 900 ppm in 2100 388 ppm in 2009 ice ice Vostok (400 k yr) Ice Core data (Petit et al, 1999) You ain’t seen nothing yet!

Climate vs. Weather “Weather tells you what to wear today … climate tells you what clothes to buy!” • Climate is an “envelope of possibilities” within which the weather bounces around • Weather depends very sensitively on the evolution of the system from one moment to the next (“initial conditions”) • Climate is determined by the properties of the Earth system itself (the “boundary conditions”)

Climate Predictability • Predicting the response of the climate to a change in the radiative forcing is not analogous to weather prediction • If the change in forcing is large and predictable, the response can also be predictable • I can’t predict the weather in Fort Collins on December 18, 2009 (nobody can!) • I can predict with 100% confidence that the average temperature in Fort Collins for December, 2009 will be warmer than the average for July!

Climate Forcing • Changes in climate often reflect changes in forcing, as amplified or damped by climate feedbacks – – – Diurnal cycle Seasonal cycle Ice ages Response to volcanic aerosol Solar variability Greenhouse forcing • If forcing is sufficiently strong, and the forcing itself is predictable, then the response of the climate can be predictable too!

Greenhouse Radiative Forcing • Note different scales • Modern change comparable to postglacial, but much faster!

Our Variable Star • Changes of ~ 0. 2% (= 2. 7 W m-2) reflect 11 -year sunspot cycle

BOOM! • Volcanoes release huge amounts of SO 2 gas and heat • SO 2 oxidizes to SO 4 aerosol and penetrates to stratosphere • SO 4 aerosol interacts with solar radiation Mt. Pinatubo, 1991

Stratospheric Aerosol Forcing

Reconstructed Radiative Forcings

Observations • Much stronger trend on land than ocean • North > South • Surface > Troposphere • Acceleration of trend

140 Years of Data

Paleotemperature

Accelerating Hydrologic Cycle

Cryospheric Change Local melting can change both the thickness of ice sheets and the extent of sea ice Both sea ice and ice sheets are dynamic (they move in response to a PGF, friction, etc) Accumulating ice in cold areas due to enhanced precipitation and melting in warmer areas leads to stronger pressure gradients and accelerating ice movement toward coasts Melting sea ice has no effect on sealevel, but melting land ice does (~7 m for Greenland)

Historical Sealevel Changes

20 th-Century Temperatures • Black lines show obs, yellow lines show each model, red line shows model mean Tsfc • With all forcings, models capture much of historical record • Bottom panels: models do not include greenhouse emissions

Emission Scenarios • A 1: Globalized, with very rapid economic growth, low population growth, rapid introduction of more efficient technologies. • A 2: very heterogeneous world, with selfreliance and preservation of local identities. Fertility patterns across regions converge very slowly, resulting in high population growth. Economic development is regionally oriented and per capita economic growth & technology more fragmented, slower than other storylines. • B 1: convergent world with the same low population growth as in A 1, but with rapid changes in economic structures toward a service and information economy, reductions in material intensity, introduction of clean and resource-efficient technologies. The emphasis is on global solutions to economic, social, and environmental sustainability, including improved equity, without additional climate initiatives. • B 2: local solutions to economic, social, and environmental sustainability. Moderate population growth, intermediate levels of economic development, and less rapid and more diverse technological change than in B 1 and A 1. Each “storyline” used to generate 10 different scenarios of population, technological & economic development

Emission Scenarios

Sensitivity to Emission Scenarios Emissions CO 2 Temperature • Uncertainty about human decisions is a major driver of uncertainty in climate change • Model ensemble simulated warming ranges ~ 2. 5º K in 2100

Warming in 2090’s Low Emissions • Land vs ocean! • North vs South • Global mean warming of 2º to 5º C • North American warming of 3º to 6º C Moderate Emissions = 5º to 11º F • Arctic warming of 8º to 14º F Rainfall? Water supply? High Emissions Agriculture? Ski industry? Mass immigration?

Common Misconception #2 “When we reduce or stop the burning of fossil fuel, the CO 2 will go away and things will go back to normal” CO 2 from fossil fuel will react with oceans, but only as fast as they “mix” Eventually, fossil CO 2 will react with rocks About 1/3 of today’s emissions will stay in the air permanently! Archer et al, Ann. Rev. Earth Plan. Sci. (2009)

So What?

More Paleoclimate Data

Climate Skeptics • Observed warming in the past is caused by something else – Natural cycles (e. g. , recovery from Little Ice Age) – Changes in the sun – Volcanos – Etc • Climate system is too complicated to be predicted, and climate models are too simplistic to represent real physics • “Conspiracy theories”

Responding to Skeptics • Observed warming not caused by humans: – There hasn’t been much warming yet, because CO 2 hasn’t increased very much (about 30%) – Does that mean that there won’t be warming when CO 2 increases by 300%? • Models are insufficiently complicated: – Predictions of warming don’t require complicated models, just simple physics – Predicting that climate will not change if we double or triple CO 2 requires some kind of huge offsetting forcing (“follow the energy”) – Complicated models don’t show any such thing – Observations favor the simple solution